Trials Together (Bonus Story): The Kill Order
by msnoname24
Summary: What if the people in The Kill Order did actually survive? A bonus to my Trials Together stories where this is the case. Please read and review. There are very few fanfics for The Kill Order online so I want to know what people think.
1. Chapter 1

Darts came raining down from the Berg, all directly aimed at the people below, there was shouting and panic as people frantically tried to get away, Mark found himself frozen, watching. Alec had disappeared entirely, the Toad and Misty had had the sense to take off. Trina, Darnell and Lana were still there, staring at the chaos that had been calm a moment ago.

There was a thunk next to him and Mark saw Darnell had a dart stuck in his shoulder. But he didn't fall, like everyone else who was hit had done. Instead the boy staggered in shock, staring at the metal protruding from his skin.

That snapped Mark out of it.

Lana was shouting, but he couldn't tell what or at who over the din of the Berg.

He ran, Trina beside him. Misty and the Toad were far ahead, urging people to hurry.

The panic was absolute.

They sprinted around the corner of a larger building, where they were hid by trees. Trina called for the others to join them and they did, the only person missing from their group was Alec and Mark dreaded to know what he was planning.

"What on Earth?" Misty demanded, fighting to catch her breath. "why are they doing this?"

"Don't know," the Toad said. "Everyone alright?" There was a chorus of yeahs and yeses from everyone except Darnell.

"Someone help me get this thing out my shoulder." He said pulling at the dart and wincing, judging by the length of the ones he had seen Mark estimated that at least an inch or two of it was buried in his skin. There was some blood but not much, the strange thing was that the boy had not fallen like everyone else that was hit.

"Anyone got a knife?" Lana said, switching into nurse mode, the Toad pulled one out of his backpack and gave it to her, Mark saw that him, Misty and Darnell still had their packs on. Had they really been joking about that only ten minutes before?

"A clean knife?" Lana amended. It was one of their running jokes, but one that was based on some fact.

"It is clean," the Toad told her, "I do wash some things."

"That is new information," Misty rolled her eyes.

Trina glared at the two of them, "let's get the thing out of Darnell's shoulder then let's decide what we're doing next."

Lana dug into Darnell's shoulder with the knife. Mark had to look away until Trina tapped his shoulder and he saw Lana had unearthed the dart with some flesh stuck to it, now there was a lot more blood.

"Oh that's disgusting." He moaned, he couldn't help it, he still hated blood.

"For you, maybe. For me it just hurts like hell." Darnell had clamped a hand over the injury, it wasn't really a lot of blood. Not compared to some things Mark had seen.

Lana bandaged the wound then wiped the dart on her shirt. Around them people were still running and screaming but it seemed far away. It was getting further away.

"These things are used to inject something." she said examining the dart, "my guess some sort of quick-kill virus or lethal injection."

"That makes me feel really good." Darnell said, glancing at the amount of blood still leaking from his wound onto the bandage.

"Why would anyone want to shoot us with a lethal death virus?" Trina questioned, it did seem strange in retrospect.

"Why didn't it do anything to him when everyone else is knocked out?" Mark added, this had to be the weirdest situation they had ever been in, and that was seriously saying a lot.

Alec appeared then, as suddenly as he had disappeared, holding two strange rifles. Mark has never seen those before.

"And where have you been?" Lana demanded. "We have a situation here." She gestured to everything around them.

"I ain't blind sister." The soldier looked between Mark and the others. Darnell had sat on the ground, a hand still covering his injury as if to deny its existence.

Misty had dropped her pack and was digging through it, hair covering her face, pulling out clothes and hairbrush and poorly wrapped lunch until she found her knife. She clutched the hilt tightly, the way she always did when she was afraid.

The Toad fidgeted on the spot, looking back and forth between the chaos and their group, hands moving constantly with no aim at all.

Mark knew what Alec was doing. He needed to decide who would accompany him for whatever he was planning, and he was choosing fast.

He also knew that Lana wouldn't be an option, everyone except himself and Trina had been ruled out.

Trina stood like a statue, arms wrapped around her chest, Mark ached to reach out and comfort her but now just wasn't the time.

"Okay." Alec tapped Mark on the shoulder, handed him a rifle. "You're up." He took it quickly, he wanted to fight these people who had come to destroy their lives, kill their friends.

"Good luck. Don't kill yourselves." Lana smiled at Mark, a hint of pride there.

He hugged Trina quickly, then grabbed a piece of wood for a shield and set off at a run after Alec.

They ran right into the middle of the chaos, trampling over felled bodies, running until they were right under the Berg,

Alec gave him a pistol and Mark began to shoot at the people, he wasn't sure what Alec was doing and wasn't sure he wanted to.

But he did know how to shoot. Alec and Lana had found each of them a pistol, then spent over a month teaching them all to shoot until they could almost match the soldiers.

However, their weapons were kept hidden somewhere only Lana knew about, enough fights broke out in the settlement that keeping them close at hand was a phenomenally bad idea, and they only had limited ammunition.

A rope attached to a hook shot into the air and buried itself into the skin of the Berg. Alec shouted at him to give him the gun and Mark did, a second later he saw Alec shoot into the sky holding the gun.

Mark repeated Alec's movements and shot up, something he hoped he never had to do again, ever. They managed to clamber into the hatch just before it clanged shut. All the shooters had disappeared.

They were in a completely dark room, eventually he found a light switch and turned it on, a faint glow chasing away some of the darkness. There was a door at the end of the room but it was locked tight, finding an axe to break it open took even longer and he made sure Alec did it. If there was a guy with one of those guns on the other side he didn't want to be in their way. He didn't feel bad, he had seen Alec tackle a man with a loaded pistol and win. More than once.

Whilst his friend was destroying the door Mark looked around the room, he saw some boxes with writing on the front:

 _Virus VC321xb47_

 _Highly Contagious_

 _24 Darts, Extreme Caution_

So it was a virus, and it was highly contagious. Today had gone downhill really fast.

He grabbed a wrench for a weapon and followed Alec, there was the sound of someone running nearby and Mark suspected there had to still be a couple of other people aboard, Bergs didn't fly themselves.

Alec finally broke through the door and stepped cautiously into the corridor, they made their way to the cockpit. On the way there Alec knocked out the man they had heard running. The pilot was a woman, she didn't respond to anything they said. Suddenly she pushed a lever and the Berg crashed into the trees. Mark was thrown forward into a wall, hearing shouting and metal ripped apart before the world disappeared.


	2. Chapter 2

Alec was shouting Mark's name when he woke up, the ruins of the Berg were nearby and by the stiffness in his limbs he suspected he had been out for a couple of days. Alec had found a miraculously working workpad in the ruins of the Berg, he said he planned to use it to go and find these strange people, figure out what was happening.

When they got back to the village Trina was there to meet them, walking straight up to them and stopping a few feet away, she had a cloth covering her nose and mouth the same as they had. It had seemed a sensible precaution with the virus information, that and not to touch anyone or anything they didn't have to.

"What happened?" Mark asked her, he already had some idea but they needed to know the real facts.

"Everyone who got hit with the darts woke up then died within a few hours, anyone who had been near them or helping them got sick then died as well. Now random people are getting sick and dying within days."

"Have you caught it?" Alec questioned, "what about Lana? Misty, Darnell, the Toad?"

"Are all fine," Trina interrupted, "holed up someplace till this thing dies down. Just…keep your distance from all of us alright."

"Why?" Alec asked, "you're really sure you're not sick?"

"We're not, it's just really strange, going on what happened with everyone else."

"What're you talking about?" Alec demanded.

"Darnell got hit by one of them but it didn't seem to affect him, and you know how we were all in that hut when you turned up?" The soldier nodded.

"Misty and the Toad should have caught it from him, they stayed there once I left with Lana. Going on what happened with everyone else they should be dead or close, but they're fine, not so much as a sneeze." Trina continued.

Mark couldn't tell if that was good or bad. Their three friends should be dead, but they were fine, it was too bad he didn't know how viruses worked, maybe Lana did.

"Let's round everyone up." Alec grunted, "we need to leave before this gets any worse."

Judging from what Trina had said Mark wasn't sure how much worse it could get.

They found Darnell in a small hut on his own and the Toad and Misty on the second floor of a cabin at the other end of town. They were okay, all of them, but they seemed very worried about the virus. Despite what Trina had said about them.

Next they found Lana, sleeping by the river, she quickly started explaining what had happened after they left.

"The people that got shot with the darts woke up then convulsed and died in a few hours. Main symptom was intense pressure in their skulls, everyone who helped them too. Now people are saying their heads hurt, then in a few hours they start screaming and die. They're dropping like flies." Not at all reassuring, it was a slightly more scientific version of Trina's earlier overview.

"Pressure in their skulls, screaming, might affect the brain." Mark put in, Lana nodded.  
"Whatever it is, it's very contagious and very deadly, we need to leave."

They packed supplies at the Shack and left quickly, keeping apart and not talking. Everything had gone wrong again.


	3. Chapter 3

They only made it about three miles before it became too dark to continue, making a camp under some burnt trees and eating some packaged dinner before laying down.

Alec had talked the others through their plan to follow the workpad's travel log to wherever the dart people had come from, likely some underground apocalypse bunker for the rich and or powerful. They had to be very careful the battery didn't run out so had created a paper map. Mark wasn't sure what they would find there, who would distribute this virus that was killing so horribly. Misty had mentioned how those that were only now showing symptoms were irrational, dangerous, insane. It was taking longer and longer to kill.

Lana had set up strict quarantine guidelines, she wasn't yet sure what the incubation period for the virus was, saying that at first it had been hours but was incrementally increasing to nearly a week. They were to keep the wet cloths over their noses and mouths, not touch each other and wash hands and faces whenever they stopped, no sharing of food or water.

They could even all be infected already, Alec had remarked darkly, Lana had swatted him with a stick. But it was possible, very possible.

There were the odd cases, some that had been hit with darts died days later, or symptoms of those exposed took days to manifest. She was still puzzling over the problem posed by Darnell, Misty and the Toad, who didn't have a single symptom but had been exposed days ago with no protection for an extended period. Anomalies meaning that any idea of understanding was full of gaping holes.

The damned virus, their world had fallen apart once again, having to leave the home they had made. Eventually Mark fell asleep, memories came next. How Mark hated those stupid memories, they never left him alone.

* * *

The next morning was every bit as subdued as the day before, they had been supposed to be spending the week scouting to find somewhere to extend the settlement.

On any such normal expedition Mark would have been walking next to Trina, perhaps holding her hand whilst they talked about anything and everything. Darnell would be making stupid jokes that still made everyone laugh. The happiness from the morning the darts came was a memory as distant as the subtrans tunnels.

Now there was only the possibility of imminent death coupled with a sense of foreboding that something very bad was going to happen very soon.

Alec called a break for lunch, granola bars and water from the stream. Despite living in a world that had been burnt with enough heat to melt steel there was always plenty of water. Alec and Lana were conferring over the map when Trina called Mark to follow her into the woods. She wanted to stop with the quarantine, saying that either they were all clear or all infected. Mark agreed with that, if they were all going to die they wouldn't do it forced apart. They hugged and kissed for a few moments, Mark felt happy for the first time in days, it was cut off all too soon.

"Trina, Mark, whatever you're doing come back it's time to go." The Toad's odd high pitched shouts completely ruined the moment. Trina sighed.

They held hands until they were close enough to the camp to be seen. Mark hoped Alec and Lana fell asleep quickly that night, the others wouldn't tell on them.

The second night travelling was the same as the first, only after Alec and Lana were definitely asleep Mark slid over to Trina and lay next to her.

The Toad and Misty were still sat by the ashes of the fire, they looked over but said nothing. Mark really wished he could have known them and Darnell before the sun flares, they made good friends and good company.

* * *

 **A/N: I am redoing this story too if anyone is reading it, if you can guess why it's called Bonus Story for Trials Together you can ask me any question you want about what I'm planning.**


	4. Chapter 4

"Did anyone hear anything odd last night?" Misty questioned, they had started through a patch of lighter forest, the sun beating down with a vengeance.

"No, were you up all night again?" Lana gave the girl a disapproving glance, Misty was always the last to go to sleep and first to wake up, often only getting maybe four hours sleep and still being able to function perfectly well. It really wasn't that fair, Mark knew if he could do that he would have far fewer nightmares.

"Not all night, till maybe three. It seemed like there were people out in the woods, nowhere close, they were chanting like a cult." Misty continued.

Mark was instantly reminded about how she had spoken of people being driven insane by the virus, he didn't want to end up anywhere near a cult of crazies. That plus the fact that cults were usually kind of insane anyway.

"There was something." Darnell commented, the boy had been unusually quiet the last couple of days, but the dynamic if the group seemed to be slowly returning to normal.

That wasn't good, something was usually real if more than one person had heard it.

"In that case, stay on guard," Alec instructed, "no wandering off." He looked pointedly at Mark and Trina saying the last statement. The quarantines must have been lifted because Lana wasn't lecturing them.

In the middle of the afternoon they spotted a settlement, not unlike their own. Wooden huts and leaning buildings, they approached it after some discussion, hopefully they could warn the people there or get help.

Or that was what Mark was thinking before they were accosted by the stench of rotting flesh.

Bodies were stacked on top of each other and there were no people except for a little girl who was perhaps about four. She was very dirty and looked like she hadn't eaten properly in a while. The child came towards them, obviously looking for help.

Trina called out to her and she said all the people that had been in her village ran away into the forest. Abandoning her, the idea was horrible.

Trina walked towards the girl and bent down in front of her. The girl spoke up before Trina could say anything.

"Are you sick?" The girl asked, "did the dart people come for you too."

"Yes they did, one of us got sh*t but none of us are sick."

The girl looked confused, as if she wanted to ask some questions about it but what she said was a normal question.

"What are your names?" she asked shyly, "mine's Deedee and my brother's called Ricky." There was no sign of anyone else, let alone another child.

"I'm Trina," Trina said to the girl, "Mark, Darnell, Misty, the Toad, Alec and Lana." She pointed to all of them in turn, Deedee looked at them all hard, memorising faces, her eyes were an incredibly bright blue.

"Why did they leave you?" Deedee questioned, "they hate people who don't get sick." She added, as if it was the only explanation she could think of.

"We chose to leave, why did they leave you?" Trina continued calmly, it reminded Mark of the way she had been with Madison, when they were both told by their parents to look after her.

"They left me because of this," Deedee said, lifting her sleeve and exposing an old circular wound on her upper arm. It looked very like the scar Darnell now had on his shoulder from the dart, but nowhere near as new. The girl had been sh*t with one of them.

"They all ran away." Deedee pointed to the woods behind them, the exact direction they were planning to go in.

"It's okay," Trina tried to comfort her without touching her, "Darnell got hit by one of them too and he's fine." It appeared that their friend's one off luck wasn't one off. How many people were there who could resist the effects of the darts?

Trina turned to Alec with an imploring look in her eyes, the man raised his hands immediately in a gesture of surrender.

"Don't start, I'm not heartless, we'll take her with us but don't touch her for all our sakes."

They camped not long after, Trina taking incredibly good care of Deedee whilst wearing a cloth over her face.

Alec announced that from his calculations they only had a day of travelling to go before they reached the Berg's return point. Deedee enjoyed the meal they gave her a lot, eating like she hadn't in weeks, probably true. She kept asking lots of questions, like she was trying to understand why if they didn't have the virus they hadn't been treated like she had.

* * *

 **A/N: If you read this please send me a bit of a review so I know if anyone thinks this is worth continuing any more.**

 **On an unrelated note I have written two chapters for this and one for Trials Together in the last 24 hours. Go me!**


	5. Chapter 5

"She is probably infected, but it's taking longer to manifest itself, I think it's the same as Darnell." Mark overheard Lana as they walked, Deedee had glued herself to Trina.

"Odds are we're all sick." Alec replied, Mark wished they would stop talking about it.

"Stop being so depressing. It'll happen if it does but until we know for sure quit worrying." The Toad seemed to be on the same wavelength as Mark. If they would die they could die on their own terms, maybe make sure that the mysterious people didn't attack anyone else.

They had travelled a few miles in the precise direction that Deedee had pointed earlier. Alec had shrugged when Mark brought it up, saying there probably weren't many of them left and from what they'd seen and been told they wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight.

There was still the sense that something bad was going to happen, that inexplicable dread that came from both nowhere and everywhere at once, Mark could tell everyone else felt it.

The day felt like a million years, they were getting very close to where this bunker was, that was likely the source of the apprehension hanging over everyone. The idea of keeping apart had been abandoned entirely, Lana having told them that either no one was sick or they were all goners.

A break mid-afternoon ended in hysterics, Trina commenting on Alec's manners somehow sending them into fits of laughter. This wasn't abnormal and everything felt so much lighter.

"What do we do once we've visited these jerks?" Mark asked, he had no idea what their long term plan was after finding out what was going on.

"Well we can't stay up in these mountains, might have to take a trek across the country." Lana told them, so no one had a plan.

They had heard that cities such as Denver in Colorado were rebuilding quite well, and Alaska was doing well enough to be the seat of the PFC. But Denver was about 1500 kilometres away, and they didn't know how widespread this virus was.

They had to be cautious, careful of any guards, traps or cameras. They had to surprise these people so they would be more likely to be honest and less likely to take sniper shots at them.

Alec double checked his paper map against the workpad, announcing that they were only five miles from the bunker so should camp for the night.

Deedee was sat alone, facing a tree, Mark approached her.

"Nothing's going to happen tomorrow, we'll just leave you somewhere so we can talk to some people. Maybe someone will stay with you."

The girl nodded at him, still looking scared.

"You promise?"

"Definitely." Trina hugged her, Alec and Lana were still focusing on the maps. The other three were setting up a fire and rummaging through packs for food.

There was suddenly a noise, like singing. Everyone turned their heads towards it.

"That sounds just like before." Misty stated, looking at Darnell who murmured agreement. Mark hadn't heard it then but understood exactly what they had meant. It was just like a cult chant.

"Lana, can I have my best knife back." The Toad shamelessly broke the silence.

"Yes," she took it out of a pocket and held it out to him. "Why?"

"A cult, possibly with a disease making them even crazier, and cults do not have a good reputation for mental stability."

"I hate to say this but we should check that out." Alec turned away from the direction of the noise, face furrowed in concentration. Mark certainly did hate that idea, but he was curious about where it was coming from and Alec would need back up.

"I'm not going anywhere near that." Misty announced with an air of finality, Mark couldn't blame her.

"I'll go." He blurted it out almost involuntarily. Alec surveyed the group, obviously calculating.

Deedee cleared her throat.

"Do you know something?" Trina asked her gently, the child looked terrified.

"The people I lived with. It's them. I know it's them. They turned weird, started … doing things. Saying trees and plants and animals are magic. They left me because they said I was … evil." She broke into a whimper on the last word. "Because I got shot and didn't get sick."

"Alright, boys with me." Alec got up, Mark did as well, the Toad and Darnell copied without protest, retrieving their knives. Misty held one tight in her hand.

They were about to walk into the trees when Deedee said one last thing.

"Watch out for the ugly man with no ears."

She leaned into Trina's shoulder and started sobbing. Mark looked at Alec, who shook his head not to press the girl. Without a word they headed into the forest.


	6. Chapter 6

They were going towards the singing, despite his curiosity all of Mark's instincts said he should be going the other way. Alec glared at anyone who stepped on anything that made a noise. The singing was gradually increasing in both noise and intensity.

Alec stopped them just out of sight of the fire, the singing was incredibly loud now, and shadows of fire danced on the tree trunks.

"They must be insane, to have a big fire when it's this dry." Darnell pointed out, Mark was preoccupied with the idea that they could soon be just as crazy as these people.

A cult made even crazier with insanity virus, this was going great.

"The people at the bunker have to have noticed them," Alec was saying, they'll be on high alert.

"But probably more focused on the potential forest fire than on us." Mark added, Alec gave him an approving look, like he always did when one of them figured something out the same way as him and Lana.

"Can we go now?" The Toad asked, fidgeting nervously, Alec held up a hand.

"Who's up there?"  
They froze, now the people had seen them, even better.  
"I said who's up there?" It was a woman, calling from the group at the fire. "We mean you no harm. We just want to invite you to join us in our praises to nature and the spirits."  
"Hoo boy," Alec whispered. "I think not."  
There was the crunch of footsteps and before they could do anything several people were stood over them, now there was no chance to run.

"You're welcome to dance and sing with us," the woman said. Her tone seemed way too … calm for the circumstances. In this new world, strangers should be met with more caution.  
Alec immediately declined, Mark really just wanted to leave, meeting eyes with Darnell and the Toad he saw that they agreed.

"Why are you here?" the man asked, as if he hadn't heard the comments from Alec. "Why are you here, spying on us? I would think you'd be honored that we offered an invitation."  
"We were curious," Alec said evenly.

"Why did you leave Deedee behind?" Mark suddenly blurted out, having no idea where it came from. He didn't even know for sure if these people really were from the same village or not. "She's just a little girl. Why did you leave her behind like a dog?"

Alec gave him a How could you be such an idiot? look.

The woman didn't answer his question. "I have a bad feeling about you," she replied. "And we can take no chances. Seize them."

Suddenly there were ropes around their necks, Alec was cursing and struggling, Mark let them pull him over, not wanting to be strangled.

They started dragging him down the slope of the mountain.

Toward the fire.

Alec was still struggling, two men pulling the rope tight around his neck.

"Alec stop it, they're going to kill you!" Mark shouted, but it didn't help. The other two had followed Mark's lead not to struggle, but Alec put up enough of a fight for all of them. Eventually they lay by the fire, the woman who had originally called out standing above them, face eerily calm.

"Why are you doing this?" Mark asked no one in particular. "We're not here to hurt you guys. We just want to know who you are, what you're doing!"  
"That's why you asked about Deedee?"  
Mark was incredulous at her lack of emotion. "So it was you who left her. Why? And why are we prisoners now? We just want some answers!"

"He's a demon, like the girl!" Someone shouted, grabbing the attention of all the people, they gathered to stare at the dart wound on Darnell's shoulder.

"They must all be demons then," the woman announced, "they brought the demons from the sky, and now come to kill us themselves."

"We're not demons, demons aren't real." Alec was still struggling against his captors.

The word demons seemed to set off the people, who began to converge around them in even greater numbers, someone kicked Mark in the ribs.

"Stop." It was a man who made the command, and everyone did, standing almost to attention. Turning around Mark saw that the man was hideously scarred, likely from the sun flares, as a result he had no hair, and he had no ears.


	7. Chapter 7

The man was called Jed, and he was the leader of what Mark now resolved to simply call 'The Crazy Cult', and he kept talking about demons. How they came annually now, sun and ships.

"They say you are demons, but I don't believe that, you will be our friends now." Jed continued, the wound on Darnell's shoulder had luckily been forgotten, and he had had enough sense to cover it.

Apparently these people had been attacked by a Berg two months and three days ago, and some people from their village, who Mark concluded were also crazy, had not joined the crazy cult, but liked to attack them periodically. You couldn't make this crap up, but somehow they were living it.

As the man talked they began to quietly free themselves from the ropes, no one took any notice of this. If they were lucky they would be able to bolt back to their camp before long, collect the girls then run as far away from these people as possible.

Mark tried to ask him a few questions, but this only caused him to shout about pain and clutch at his head. Mark remembered that the main symptom of the virus was intense pressure in the skull, and that it seemed to be weakening as it spread.

Then there were the sounds of a few dozen people running, screaming, laughing hysterically, making animal noises. There were even more crazy people.

"What now?" Alec said with clear disgust.

"We warned you about them," the woman said from where she knelt. "They used to be our friends, our family. Now the demons have taken them and all they want is to torment us, to kill us."

Jed suddenly reared up on his knees screaming at the top of his lungs. Violently, he jerked his head down, then left and right, as if he were trying to knock something loose from his skull. Mark couldn't help but scoot backward, crab-walking until the rope around his neck grew taut. The other end was still in the hands of one of the kneeling men.

Jed let out a piercing, horrific sound that cut off all the new ones coming from the forest around them.

"They've killed me!" he yelled, the words ripping from his throat. "The demons … finally … killed me!"

His body went rigid, his arms stiff at his sides, and he fell over, a last breath rushing from his mouth. His body stilled, and blood began to seep from his nose and mouth.

At the death of their leader the crazies went still, like bees without a queen.

"Can we go _now_?" Darnell whined, throwing his ropes off altogether.

"Yes." Alec replied as they all got up, none of the cult people moved, they were obviously still stunned. The other infected coming towards them were getting louder. Mark wanted to be almost anywhere on the planet other than this camp of madness.

The wave of attackers crashed into the rows of singers, jumping on them with animalistic cries of battle. Two men leaped into the air and straight into the bonfire. As Mark watched in horror, their clothes and hair ignited.

Screams tore from their throats as they stumbled out of the flames, but it was too late. Engulfed and burning alive, they ran out into the woods, sure to set the whole forest on fire. Mark turned back to the chanting villagers. They were being beaten and choked, he was surrounded by chaos—it was too much to take in.

They were suddenly in the middle of what seemed like a thousand-person fistfight. Mark was pushed and shoved. To his surprise, he realized that it wasn't just the new people versus the old. Many of the attackers were actually pummeling each other—he saw a woman fall into the fire, her screams filling the air.

They took off up the slope, away from the fire that was now gaining traction in the dry forest, spread by the fighters who had no regard for their own safety.

The crazies mostly ignored them, but they had to fight off a few. The fire was spreading terrifying quickly, a huge section of burning forest cutting them off from their camp.


	8. Chapter 8

The Toad swore, a sound tinged with anger and irritation, Mark understood that completely. Why couldn't something just go their way for five minutes?

Alec had already started running, straight towards the flames. Mark and the other two sighed, then followed.

Alec was right of course, they had to get through the inferno before it got too large, back to their camp, there were still the faint sounds of pursuit, but not too many, or too close.

He ran on, throwing all of his focus into making it back to Trina.

The fire got closer, crackling and spitting and roaring. A wind had picked up, fanning the flames; a huge branch toppled from far above and crashed through the canopy, throwing sparks everywhere until it finally hit the ground. Alec continued to head for the heart of the blazing section of woods, not slowing down, as if his one final goal was to run to a fiery death and end it all.

"Shouldn't we veer off?" Mark shouted up to him. "Where are you going?"  
Alec answered without turning back and Mark had to strain to hear him. "I want to be as close as possible! Run along its edges so we know exactly where we are! And maybe lose those psychos while we're at it!"

The smoke made it hard to breathe, and the heat reminded Mark of the day of the Flares, they could well die of heat exhaustion if they kept this up.

Finally they reached the edge of the expanding inferno, the line of it far more distinct than Mark would've expected. They kept the same distance, but it felt good, sent a burst of fresh adrenaline through his body, to be turning toward the left, turning toward Trina and the others again. Mark ran even harder, almost tripped Alec's feet up when he caught up to him. Then they were side by side.

Every breath was a chore for Mark. The air scalded his throat as it went down, and the smoke was like poison. "We've gotta … get away … from this thing."  
"I know!" Alec shouted back, bursting into a long fit of coughing. He quickly glanced at the compass gripped in the palm of his hand. "Almost … there."

"We'd better be, and there'd best be water there." Darnell panted, coming to run alongside them.

They stopped for a moment, catching their breath, it was still uncomfortably hot, but the fire was far enough away to not be an immediate danger.

Once everyone was breathing normally they set off again, Alec leading them through the trees and down a slope, Mark didn't really remember the terrain, but he trusted that Alec would.

"Here we are." The soldier announced, the landscape was familiar, the sun starting to creep over the tops of the trees, they had been away almost the whole night.

The things at their camp were exactly as they left them, but no sign of Trina, or anyone else.

They began to comb the surrounding area, looking for signs of their friends, shouting their names. But all was quiet.

Mark couldn't think of a single reason Trina, Lana and Misty would have run away, abandoning the camp when they had not yet returned. The fire was a safe enough distance away, and there weren't any crazies around here. At least not now, that thought filled him with dread, he'd seen enough reactions from sane people to 'pretty girls' over the last year.

"What if some of those wackos came through here?" Mark suggested.

"They were very interested in the girl, might have tried to get her back." The Toad was looking through his pack, finding water and drinking the whole bottle. Mark copied him, feeling instantly refreshed.

Apart from that he was completely freaking out, it was entirely plausible that some crazy people could have caught them, that they had ran from them and been trapped by the fire, Mark thought of the burnt bodies in the subtrans tunnels, the awful scars that were now commonplace.

He squeezed his hands into fists and pressed them against his eyes, Alec grabbed his arms, wrenching them away.

"Mark. What's come over you? Calm down."

Mark dropped his hands and looked into Alec's eyes, which were hard and gray in the low light of dawn, but also filled with genuine concern. "I'm sorry. I'm just … I'm freaking out, here. What're we going to do?"  
"We're going to keep our wits about us and we're going to stay calm and we're going to think. And then we're going to go out there and find Lana and the others."

The panic slowly drained from Mark's body, Alec would figure things out, he always did.  
Mark finally looked at the soldier again. "Okay. I'm okay. Sorry."  
"Good. That's better." Alec took a step back and studied the ground. "It's getting light enough now. We need to find any sign of what path they took—broken branches, footprints, cleared undergrowth, whatever. Start searching."

They quickly found many such obvious signs of passage, but concluded that they had caused them all, it quickly became maddening.

"Maybe they ran away from the fire, they didn't know we were in trouble. Lana probably thought to run to the Berg headquarters, rendezvous there." Darnell was making a lot of sense, but Mark missed his jokes.

"I think you've got it." Alec had a slight smile, enjoying this. Him and Lana had made the five of them their responsibility and protegees since the day of the Flares, and you didn't spend a year of that without picking things up. "Let's go."

The Toad had the idea to collect supplies, the small amounts of food, water and small weapons they could stash in pockets. It was very easy to forget such things, and they could well end up regretting it later, it wouldn't be the first time.

They now searched a wider area, but still found nothing for a few minutes until Alec called out that he had found something, showing them tiny footprints the right size for Deedee, and worryingly, a few small drops of blood.

There was more blood further along the path, someone must have caught themselves on a sharp twig or maybe fallen on a rock. They followed that and the other signs, Alec repeating that he was sure it was their group, three adults and a child. He thought someone must have started carrying Deedee because her footprints had disappeared, Mark was going to go with that.

Something glinted by Mark's foot, it was amazing Alec had missed it. He bent and picked it up, a small knife, one of a pair that was used by the Toad and Misty.

"This is Misty's knife, right?" He held it out to his friend who took it, comparing it to his own and nodding.

"Definitely." The Toad pocketed it, the exchange having attracted everyone's attention.

Mark remembered that Misty had been holding her knife when they left, and had certainly been freaked out by the idea of crazy people.

"We know she's smart enough not to run with a knife in her hand. So it's likely she hadn't had the time to think to put it away, or thought she needed it." Alec was saying, that made perfect sense, and certainly added urgency for the situation. For Misty to believe she needed her knife, drop it and then not pick it up, they must have been moving quickly, likely running from something, and she wouldn't need a blade to protect from fire.

That made it the obvious conclusion that the crazies must have been chasing them. Mark looked up and saw that his companions must have had the same epiphany. They were in serious trouble.

"All the signs add up. The length of their strides, the smashed bushes, the broken shrubbery and branches. Like they were being chased." Alec explained.

"But there aren't any other footprints." Darnell began, looking confused.

"Bergs, remember, I'd run from one of those. Tons of people got shot with those things back home. You're the only one still kicking."

Alec was right, but the idea terrified Mark.

"We'd have heard a Berg…" But Mark didn't quite believe his own words, not with all the sounds of crazy people and fire they had heard that night.

They continued on in silence.


End file.
